Normally this would simply be a friendfeed item.  But I don’t like blogging too irregularly and I’m busy at the moment.  So it will do.

U.S. Rep. Steven C. LaTourette (R-OH) says he fears that John Dugan, Comptroller of the Currency, steered $7.7 billion of taxpayer bailout money to his former client, PNC, so it could buy National City Bank.

 LaTourette today sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson outlining his concerns and asking for an investigation.  He also asked House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) to hold a hearing on the Fed’s decision to have one regional bank (PNC) gobble up regional bank (National City) using bailout money.  LaTourette is a senior member of the Financial Services panel.

 The Pittsburgh-based PNC, which bought National City on Friday at a fire-sale price with federal bailout money, was one of Dugan’s clients just before he was sworn in as Comptroller of the Currency in August 2005, LaTourette said.  Prior to becoming Comptroller, Dugan was a partner at Covington and Burling, a DC law firm that specializes in banking regulation.  

 “I am very concerned that the Comptroller first deprived bailout money to National City Bank and then orchestrated its sale to his former client, PNC.  The officials at PNC have made it very clear that they were only able to buy National City because they got a $7.7 billion handout from the government,” LaTourette said. (Did Comptroller Steer Bailout money to his former Client, PNC?)

Read the whole release. It is eye-opening.

I suspect that all the parties asked to investigate already know, or already know they don’t care, what happened.  Because this is exactly the arbitrary power that was given to the Secretary of the Treasury.  This is Business as usual, now.

Welcomd to G-Sax Nation.

Not sure Michelle sees it that way, but I think Reagan stands out as courageous for realizing that it was wrong to think that peacekeeping in the Middle East was worth American blood.  He got us out after reconsidering his decision, from the standpoint of over two hundred killed.  Strangely, for many, “never forget” seems to be a wish that we could add other names to the list of the dead.

Disregarding Reagan’s wisdom is a huge reason why we are now descending into a Banana Republic both economically and legally.  It is also why we might possibly soon be ruled by one of the most extreme leftist regimes of our history.

That’s how the establishment responds to the prophesied Judgment Day: “It is all their fault”

Thus, the Slate rant. But you gotta love the irony:

The worst thing you can say about libertarians is that they are intellectually immature, frozen in the worldview many of them absorbed from reading Ayn Rand novels in high school. Like other ideologues, libertarians react to the world’s failing to conform to their model by asking where the world went wrong.

Yeah, I have been embarrassed to admit I read Ayn Rand novels, but that was before the G-Sax putsch started dramatizing passages from Atlas Shrugged, complete with high melodrama and bizarrely revealing villain names.

I’ve always wondered how so many people could continue to believe the lie that “Herbert Hoover did nothing in response to the Depression due to his allegiance to laissez-faire capitalism.” But if the political class and its minions are now, in the face of the web, youtube.com, and the alternative media, willing to say anything they need to do to assure you how much you need their expert care in order to have prosperity, I’m beginning to understand how it can happen.

But will it work this time? Is Newsweek going to be able to revise history so completely when Ron Paul is so popular on YouTube.com?

In the meantime, here’s what out guardians are doing for our economy:

Financial workers at Wall Street’s top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40bn), a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses, for their work so far this year – despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash, the Guardian has learned.

Staff at six banks including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are in line to pick up the payouts despite being the beneficiaries of a $700bn bail-out from the US government that has already prompted criticism. The government’s cash has been poured in on the condition that excessive executive pay would be curbed.

Pay plans for bankers have been disclosed in recent corporate statements. Pressure on the US firms to review preparations for annual bonuses increased yesterday when Germany’s Deutsche Bank said many of its leading traders would join Josef Ackermann, its chief executive, in waiving millions of euros in annual payouts.

The sums that continue to be spent by Wall Street firms on payroll, payoffs and, most controversially, bonuses appear to bear no relation to the losses incurred by investors in the banks. Shares in Citigroup and Goldman Sachs have declined by more than 45% since the start of the year. Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley have fallen by more than 60%. JP MorganChase fell 6.4% and Lehman Brothers has collapsed.

And a new blog to watch gives us a sample of open and transparent government from the new wing of it we just created.  Nothing like “re-regulating” without oversight.  So who regulates the regulators in this so-called “open society”?

One final note: I have to apologize for what I said here.  I just watched the entire video series that begins here. It is not just “pretty good,” as I said.  It is fantastic.  I can’t decide which portion is better: the segment on farm subsidies showing how 1930s fascism continues unchecked in agribusiness, or the horrific censorship and political defense of incumbent representatives which has been made possible by McCain-Feingold and other types of “campaign reform” (The official definition of campaign reform is: laws empowering the wealthy to destroy anyone trying to deal in politics who does not have millions of dollars for a lawyer).  Please watch it!

I mentioned earlier that I felt like I was stuck in an Ayn Rand novel.  A favorite sci fi author reminded me of some more details about why that is. I think some writer’s scoffed that Rand would name a government bureaucrat, who blackmailed and stole from corporate heads, “Wesley Mouch.”

Can you imagine the reaction if she had named one of her villains Neel Kashkari?

Of course, the situation has grown far far worse since I made my dystopian literary comparison.  I guess there is no real conspiracy because, you know, conspirators hide what they are doing.  This is all going on in the daylight with the aid and abetment of the media, both main political parties, and their candidates.

Where do you think this lawlessness will end?  Right now, I’m praying my kids grow up and grow old without being citizens of a country where there is open knowledge of an assassination of someone for not cooperating with the executive branch.  I can hear the NPR discussion now.  “Well, I think it is probable that he ordered it done and it might stand up in court.  But everyone knew that something had to be done with this economy the way it is.  The real question should be why the CEO refused to do what was necessary.”

Reading this report, I can only hope it is accurate.  If the United States was to go into 2009 with a strong economy, that would mean we could be certain to engage in more international warfare on foreign soil.  (Who gets elected would have made no difference.  The McBama presidency will mean more war unless something restrains the person holding that office.

So if God is forcing us to bring our armies home and to get back into production rather than consumption and international nation-“building,” then let us be thankful.  Military virtues are real virtues, but they shouldn’t be put to the service of impossible schemes that promise safety and peace in the far future and only deliver chaos and uncertainty in the real world.  These schemes are typically generated by people who would never serve a minute in the military and have no concept of military virtues.  Being poor is a great way to force people to deal with reality.